Pumpkin Fun! {Math and Literacy Activities with Pumpkins!}

FUN FALL MATH, LITERACY, AND SCIENCE ACTIVITIES USING PUMPKINS

Fall means pumpkins! Bring one to your classroom to use as a teaching tool!

HOW DO PUMPKINS GROW?

I asked my students how they thought pumpkins grew, and gave them some choices: on a tree, under the ground, on a bush, or on a vine.

Then of course we headed to a pumpkin patch to find out the answer for ourselves :)

We took a pumpkin back to school with us, and did some fun math and literacy activities with it!

DO PUMPKINS SINK OR FLOAT?

On the next day of school, I carried the very large and heavy pumpkin to the carpet and set it down. I asked my students what they thought would happen to the pumpkin if we put it in our large classroom sink--will the pumpkin sink or float in the water?

Again, the results were mixed, but most were convinced the heavy pumpkin would sink:

So, I carried the big and heavy pumpkin to our large classroom sink.

And...it didn't fit!

I explained to my students that it would actually float in the water.

But they didn't believe me! They thought it was too heavy. So I explained that big boats are heavy and they float on the water...which led to a student reminding me about the Titanic.

So the next school day I brought my students into the school's kitchen {where the sinks are wider} and we tried the experiment again. This put an end to their doubts.

PUMPKIN LIFE CYCLE

PUMPKIN HEIGHT ESTIMATION & MEASUREMENT

How many cubes tall is our pumpkin?

Students wrote their estimates on a small sticky note, then stuck it to the chart.

Next we measured the pumpkin and filled in the correct answer.

We looked back at our estimates to compare them with the real answer...which numbers were higher, lower, or just right.

PUMPKIN CIRCUMFERENCE ESTIMATION & MEASUREMENT

After taking a good look at our class pumpkin, I asked students to think about the pumpkin's circumference.

I had them pull some yarn and tell me how long the piece should be to fit around the pumpkin.

Then it was time to try them out and see which ones are TOO LONG, TOO SHORT, or JUST RIGHT.

The picture below shows our closest guess, but it was just a little too short.

Most guesses were too short!

PUMPKIN MEASUREMENT USING NON-STANDARD UNITS & CLASS BOOK

Using pumpkin cut-outs, we measured everyone in the class...even the teacher!...to see how many pumpkins tall we are.

Then we filled in a page about ourselves, and illustrated our data.

The pages were put together to make a class book, that they LOVE to read!

PUMPKIN COUNTING

PUMPKIN LETTERS

PUMPKIN SIGHT WORDS

PUMPKIN SIGHT WORD & COLOR WORD CHART

This pocket chart story includes color words as well as sight words.

Students took turns putting the sentences together and matching the pictures to the sentences.

PUMPKIN CRAFTS

PUMPKIN ACTIVITY PACK